"David Zindell - Requiem of Homo Sapiens 01 - The Broken God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zindell David)

Soli turned his face to the north, saying nothing.
Danlo followed his gaze outward, upward to where the pointed
summit of Kweitkel rose above them. It was a great shining
mountain marbled in granite and ice, a god watching over them.
Four thousand years ago the first Devaki had named the island
after the mountain forming
11
its centre. Generation upon generation of Danlo's ancestors
were buried here. He closed his eyes as the wind came up and
whipped his hair wildly about his head. There was ice in the
wind, the smell of pine needles, salt, and death. 'Kweitkel,
shantih,' he whispered. Soon he must bury his people in the
graveyard above the cave, and after that, the Devaki would be
buried on Kweitkel no longer.
'It was bad luck,' Soli said at last, rubbing the thick
brows of his forehead. 'Yes, bad luck.'
'I think it was shaida,' Danlo said. 'It is shaida for our
people to die too soon, yes?'
'No, it was just bad luck.'
Danlo held his hand over his forehead to keep his hair from
lashing into his eyes. He had thick black hair shot with
strands of red. 'In all the stories Haidar told over the
oilstones, in all your stories, too, I have never heard of a
whole tribe going over all at once. I never thought it was
possible. I... never thought. Where has this shaida come from?
What is wrong with the world that everyone could die like this?
"Shaida is the cry of the world when it has lost its soul" тАУ
why is the world crying of shaida, sir?'
Soli put his arm around him, and touched his head. Danlo
wept freely, then, wept for a long time into Soli's stiff,
frozen furs until a cold thought sobered him. He was only
thirteen years old, but among the Devaki, thirteen is almost
old enough to be a man. He looked at Soli, whose icy blue eyes
were also full of tears. 'Why us, Soli? Why didn't the slow
evil carry us over, too?'
Soli looked down at the ground. 'It was luck,' he said. 'Just
bad luck.'
Danlo heard the pity and pain in Soli's voice, and it
carried him close to despair. Soli, too, was ready for death.
Anyone, even a child could see that. There was madness and
death in his eyes and all over his haggard, grey face. The wind
blowing through the forest and over the icy boulders all around
them was very cold, almost dead cold, and Danlo felt like dying
himself. But he couldn't let himself
12
die because he loved life too much. Wasn't it shaida to die
too soon? Hadn't he seen as much of shaida as he could bear?
He blew on his chilled, purple fingers and put his mittens
back on. Yes, he must live because it was not time for him to
go over yet, he was still young and full of life, still just a